Maria Kangas, BA(Hons), MClinPsych, PhD, is a Professor in the School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University. Maria is a registered psychologist and has dual endorsements in Clinical and Counselling Psychology with the Psychology Board of Australia. Maria completed her Masters of Clinical Psychology degree at the University of Sydney and completed her PhD at UNSW. She also completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, USA.

Maria specialises in the assessment and treatment of stress/PTSD, anxiety and mood disturbances in trauma and medical (e.g., cancer) populations as well as health/illness anxiety and somatic health conditions across the lifespan. Through her research she has focused on understanding emotion regulation, coping strategies, resiliency factors and autobiographical memory functioning in helping people adapt to stressful life events, including medical health problems across the lifespan.

Maria has also developed and tested CBT and ACT-based therapy programs tailored towards specific stress and health populations to help people recover and enhance their resiliency and growth following adversity. 

Since 2019, Maria has also collaborated with international researchers to evaluate the efficacy of exercise and physical activity in enhancing depression and well being. In 2023 she co-authored a large scale meta-analytic review paper on this topic [Exercise as medicine for depressive symptoms? A systematic review and meta-analysis with meta-regression | British Journal of Sports Medicine (bmj.com)].

Maria has also extended her research to address clinician and consumer (client) factors in determining treatment knowledge and outcomes in therapeutic settings.

Maria is also collborating with multidiplinary researchers to evaluate the impact of nature connection and urban environments on the mental health and physical well-being of adults and children.

In recent years, Maria is also collaborating with computer sciencists and linguistic researchers to evaluate and identify how people express their feelings and regulate their emotions on social media platforms.

Maria currently (from 2024) convenes and teaches the following programs in the Master of Clinical Psychology program:

1)    Clinical Psychology Therapy 1 (PSYC985 – Convenor)

2)    Clinical Research Proposal (PSYG8002 and PSYC990 – Convenor)

3)    Clinical Psychology Research Dissertation 1 and 2 (PSYC991; PSYC992)

4)    Psychology Research Dissertation Parts 1 and 2 (PSYG8003 and PSYG8004 - Convenor)

Maria supervises students in PhD, Masters and Honours programs. Topics include:

- Trauma/PTSD and Stress management 

- Resiliency and Post-traumatic growth processes

- Emotion regulation - in preventing and maintaining well-being

- Autobiographical memory processes

- Somatization problems including health /illness anxiety and somataform disorders

- Evaluating treatment effectiveness  for Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Mindfulness approaches and resiliency enhancing programs across the lifespan;  

- Role of Physical Activity/Exercise and lifestyle interventions in enhancing emotion regulation and well-being in stressed, traumatized and depressed populations

If you are interested in being supervised by Maria please contact her via email: [email protected]

• Associate Editor, Behavior Therapy [2020 - present].
• Editorial board for the following international journals:

            - Psychological Bulletin,

            - Behaviour Research and Therapy,

         Editor, Australian Psychologist  [2016-2020]

• University Chair, Macquarie University Fellowship Scheme [2017-2018; Deputy Chair – 2016]
• Working group member of the International Consortium for Health Outcomes (ICHOM) Standard Set for Depression and Anxiety
• Member of the Fear Taskforce for the Human Affectome Project [2015 – 2022].